curvy little doctor’s blood ran.
Much more interesting ways.
With a discontented sigh and a glare at Clint, the corporal plunked the plastic bags containing his Glock and the silver star and circle that formed the Ranger badge in her outstretched hand.
“Boots?” Clint grunted, mentally chastising himself for letting his mind wander into off-limits territory again—and the doctor’s blood, hot or otherwise, was definitely off-limits. He had enough problems at the moment without adding a woman to the mix.
“That’s really not a good idea,” the woman in question said, the sympathy in her voice as thick as her accent. “Leather holds moisture down in the grain and pores. The virus—”
“I get the picture. Cell phone?”
There was a heavy pause, and then the doctor said, “Walk with me,” over her shoulder as she turned, leaving him little choice but to follow, his feet slipping and sliding in the navy-blue rubber galoshes he’d been issued to replace the four-hundred-dollar custom Luccheses that were about to be incinerated. “And put that mask on.”
Clint followed, the mask swinging at his side.
“How long have you been in law enforcement, Ranger Hayes?”
She was taking long strides for a woman with short legs. Like she had a train to catch. The movement had her hips swaying, giving him a picture of the shape inside the bulky orange suit. And quite a shape it was.
He jammed his fingers into the pockets of his jumpsuit. “All total? Sixteen years, I guess.”
He wouldn’t make seventeen. Either the virus would get him, or he’d have to face his captain, his team, and tell them he wouldn’t be coming back from medical leave. At this point, he wasn’t sure which outcome he preferred.
“…someone with your experience must understand the need to control the information the public gets about this situation.”
He’d missed the first part of what she’d said, but he got her point. “In other words, you’re not giving anyone’s cell phone back. And it has nothing to do with the virus. Just out of curiosity, what are you telling the public?”
“The truth. That a plane carrying hazardous materials crashed in the Sabine National Forest, and that local emergency workers who arrived on scene first are now helping state and federal agencies with the cleanup.”
“Helping?” He glanced at the men—mostly farmers and store clerks, mechanics and game wardens. The biggest disaster most of them ever faced was a wreck on the county highway. They weren’t prepared for an epidemic. They were sitting around folding metal tables, heads bowed and silent as they listened to a lecture on safety procedures—how to take off latex gloves without cross-contaminating them, leaving their rubber boots outside and stepping into paper booties before they entered their tents, etc. Skip Hollister reached between his feet and plucked a stem of grass, lifted it, then caught himself before he put it in his mouth, tossed it away and ground it under his heel.
“I only need twelve hours before I run the blood tests,” the doctor said, following his gaze. Had her eyes teared up? It was hard to tell behind her face shield. “Twenty-four before I can release them back to their families.”
“You hope.”
She kept walking, marching really, across the compound, but her hands, swinging at her sides, began to clench and unclench rhythmically with each stride. “I have some field-sterilization kits in my tent. They use gas pellets. It’ll take a few hours. I’ll need you to take your gun apart for me first, and then you’ll probably need to clean it to get the residue off before you put it back together, but you’d know better about that than me.”
“Not a problem.” Not as much of one as being without his gun, anyway. It wouldn’t be his much longer, but he didn’t want to give it up a second earlier than he had to.
“I’m in the first tent. Come by later and we’ll set it up.”
She stopped in front of a tent on the far-south end of camp, the opposite direction where she’d said she was quartered. Clint frowned at the two guards posted out front. These two were definitely armed. With automatic weapons and full environmental suits like the doctor’s. “How much later?”
The doctor turned to him. Her dark complexion had blanched white except for two red spots on her cheeks that gave her a feverish look. A scary proposition in a camp on the verge of an epidemic.
“Give me an hour or two,” she said. Her voice shook, adding to Clint’s misgiving. “I have something else to take care of first.”
He studied the grim-faced guards behind her. Older, these two. More experienced. They’d seen some things, he was sure. Things they didn’t talk about. He could see it in their eyes.
“What else?” he asked.
“It’s…not your concern.”
“If you’re messing with that bug again, out here where there’s still innocent people who could be exposed—”
“It’s not the virus.”
“Then what is this place?”
A wave of torment washed over her expression. “It’s the morgue. I have to identify the bodies.”
Macy stood frozen inside the flap to the tent housing the temporary morgue. She felt as if her respirator had suddenly quit working. She couldn’t draw a breath. Her chest burned, but it wasn’t enough to melt the icy shock that encapsulated her, held her immobile as a statue.
There were only three bodies.
She heard a swish of the tent flap behind her, a quiet step, and knew the Ranger had followed her inside. His hand on her shoulder was like an electric shock. It restarted her heart, jolted her lungs. She gulped in a noisy breath.
“What are you doing here?”
“Earlier, you said the people on the plane were your friends.” His voice was low, rumbling and hoarse through the gas mask he’d finally donned. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
Compassion from the Ranger? It didn’t seem to fit. But then, maybe there was more to the man than a stony countenance and flat eyes. But she wouldn’t bet on it.
“I shouldn’t have to do this at all,” she said, drawing her mind back to the black bags laid in a neat row. “They shouldn’t be here. This shouldn’t have happened.”
“If man were meant to fly we’d all be born with boarding passes stamped on our foreheads.”
Ah, there was the hard-assed Ranger she knew.
“Guard?” she called. When he poked his head inside, she asked, “Where are the others?”
“Other what, ma’am?”
“The other…remains.” She couldn’t quite think of them as bodies. Bodies belonged to people. What was in those bags belonged to God.
The burly guard frowned. “That’s all they
